1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fault monitoring system for monitoring information guidance units interconnected by telephone lines.
2. Description of the Background Art
As conventional information guide systems, voice/facsimile response units have been known to provide guidance information in response to inquiries from users over telephones lines to telephone or facsimile subscriber's sets. The conventional voice/facsimile response units are connected to a fault monitoring system that includes a dedicated computer for monitoring their faults. The fault monitoring system periodically communicates with the voice/facsimile response units to be monitored through telecommunications channels. For example, Japanese patent laid-open publication No. 311287/1994 discloses a centralized monitoring system in which facsimile machines have a data storage for storing therein fault data representing details of a fault, when involved, in the machine and a monitoring center is adapted for calling the facsimile machines, via telecommunications lines, to fetch the fault data from the data storage of the facsimile machines.
The conventional fault monitoring system, however, must possess the dedicated monitor computer and the telecommunications channels for interconnecting the dedicated monitor computer to the voice/facsimile response units. In addition, such a conventional system requires a supervisor for monitoring faults of the voice/facsimile response units by regularly operating the dedicated monitor computer.
As a result, the conventional fault monitoring system must bear heavy loads both in the expense for constructing the facility and in managing the system.